Terminator Salvation: Cold War ts-3

by Greg Cox

  Ashdown rushed through introductions.

  “Captain Smallwood, meet General Losenko. He’s just joined the Resistance. And disposed of one metal-loving traitor already.”

  Losenko flinched, but said nothing.

  “Good for you, sir!” Smallwood saluted Losenko. He peered nervously up at the sky, before escorting them to a hatch. “Now let’s get underway before another one of those damn predators comes winging for us.”

  Losenko agreed absolutely. He would have made the same call if this was his ship. He peered out at the mouth of the harbor. Deep water meant safety. He wondered how Ivanov was doing aboard K-115.

  Ashdown seemed to read his mind.

  “So what’s up with that boat of yours, General?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Captain Second-Rank Alexei Ivanov lowered the periscope. His scowl deepened. Captain Losenko had been gone for hours now, and the longer he was away, the more convinced Ivanov was becoming that his onetime friend and mentor had made a colossal mistake.

  How could the captain even think of meeting with the very people responsible for the destruction of their homeland, for the deaths of hundreds of millions of innocent men, women, and children? It was like conferring with Hitler.

  Never mind the fact that those American helicopters had helped them defeat the Smetlivy. Ivanov rather suspected that the Apaches had been more interested in sinking a Russian destroyer than assisting the Gorshkov. Currying favor with the captain had merely been an added bonus, or so Ivanov assumed. All part of an overall strategy to distract and deceive the world from the truth behind Judgment Day.

  Do they truly think we can ever forget what they did? Acid churned in his gut. He felt his blood pressure rising at the very thought. An annoying muscle twitched beneath his cheek. I can never forget. Never!

  K-115 cruised at periscope depth off the coast of Santa Cruz, carefully keeping watching over the entrance to the harbor. It was still too early to expect the captain’s signal, yet Ivanov found himself compulsively scanning the island, returning to the periscope again and again like a tongue to an aching tooth.

  What am I looking for? he asked himself. Proof that the captain and Fokin have walked into a trap?

  “Captain Ivanov!” Michenko rushed from the radio shack. “Something’s happening on the island. We’re picking up reports of explosions, anti-aircraft fire, and casualties! I think the Resistance is under attack.”

  “The Americans, you mean.” He did not swallow any of this nonsense about the Resistance—the summit had been convened by a Yankee general, that was all Ivanov needed to know. But this talk of hostilities concerned him. “Under attack by who?”

  Skynet? Just for a second, he remembered the captain’s absurd conviction that an insane computer program was out to destroy humanity. Was it conceivable that there was something to that theory after all? No, that’s ridiculous. He shook his head, clearing the notion from his brain. I know who the enemy is....

  “I don’t know, sir,” Michenko replied. “The reports are a jumble. The Resis—I mean, the Americans—sound like they were caught completely off guard!” He fumbled with his printouts. Sweat dripped from his forehead. “Do you think the captain is all right, sir?”

  “How the hell do I know?” Ivanov snapped. He hurriedly raised the periscope once more. He rotated it toward the island. Acid climbed his throat as his own eyes confirmed what the radio shack was reporting.

  Smoke and flames were climbing high above Santa Cruz, visible even from kilometers away. He increased the magnification to get a better look at the blaze. The flames appeared to be coming from the southern coast of the island, inside the harbor.

  Exactly where the so-called “summit” was being held.

  Damnation, he thought. Now what should I do?

  Part of him thought that he should immediately turn the submarine about and head out into the Pacific, putting as much distance as possible between K-115 and whatever hostilities were engulfing Santa Cruz. That would be the prudent choice, the one Moscow would have wanted, back when there still was a Moscow. He could not risk the Gorshkov for the sake of two men—even if one of those men was the rightful captain of the vessel.

  I should get as far away from here as possible, especially since we don’t even know what’s happening!

  And yet... despite their recent differences, he was reluctant to leave Losenko in jeopardy. The captain is the highest-ranking Russian military officer I know to have survived Judgment Day, he rationalized. Surely, that warrants special consideration.

  Didn’t it?

  “Captain!” Pavlinko looked up from the radar console. “I’m detecting aircraft approaching Santa Cruz.” He scrutinized the display on his screen. “One, maybe two helicopters heading for the island at high speed.”

  Ivanov struggled to keep up with events. He felt as if he was under siege.

  “Point of origin?”

  “One of the smaller islands,” Pavlinko surmised. The Galapagos were composed of numerous islands of differing sizes. “Pinzon, maybe.”

  Helicopters? Explosions? Ivanov massaged the itchy scar on his forehead, trying to sort out what was happening. Was this the trap he had feared, springing shut at last? But why would the Americans attack their own headquarters? It made no sense.

  All he knew for certain was that Captain Losenko was trapped in the middle of the chaos.

  “Ahead full speed,” he ordered. “Plot an intercept course for those helicopters.”

  Before he abandoned Losenko, he wanted to determine who was fighting who.

  Hold on, Dmitri, he thought. We’re coming for you.

  No harbor on Earth was deep enough to allow a nuclear submarine to depart port while submerged. A long shallow channel stretched before them. The Wilmington would be exposed and vulnerable until they reached the open sea beyond Santa Cruz.

  Smallwood commanded his boat from the bridge atop the sail. A temporary plexiglass windshield protected him from the weather. A light rain had begun to fall. Ashdown and Losenko lurked at the back, keeping out of the way. Losenko in particular found it unsettling not to be steering the ship himself, but had no desire to undercut the other skipper’s authority. No one liked a back-seat driver, especially not the captain of a seagoing vessel.

  Such restraint was made easier by the fact that Smallwood obviously knew what he was doing. The Russian was impressed by the man’s calm and assurance during this nerve-wracking passage. He recalled the Gorshkov’s hasty departure from Russian soil after the massacre on the peninsula. Losenko had not truly relaxed until his sub had been safely hidden beneath the waves once more.

  The mouth of the harbor lay ahead. He estimated that deep water was only about half an hour away. He wondered how he would manage to contact K-115 once they were clear of the islands. Perhaps he could persuade Smallwood to surface to periscope depth long enough to transmit a message to the Gorshkov. He could just imagine the look on Ivanov’s face when he received the password from an American attack sub!

  He very nearly smiled in spite of himself.

  The bridgebox, which linked them to the control room below, squawked in alarm. “Bridge, control!” an anxious voice reported. “Radar detecting two bogies directly ahead!”

  Smallwood cursed. He targeted his binoculars on the open water beyond the harbor.

  “There they are, damnit!”

  Ashdown came forward.

  “What is it, Captain?”

  “Two Apache helicopters, loaded for bear.” He passed the binoculars over to Ashdown. “They’re hovering above the sea, just waiting for us!”

  “Any way to get around them?” Ashdown asked.

  “No, sir,” Smallwood replied. “There’s only one way out, and no place to dive.”

  Ashdown nodded, unsurprised by the captain’s answer.

  “Guess we’re going to have to fight our way out, then.” He glanced back, and Losenko nodded. Turning back was not an option. Santa Cruz was no longer a safe h
aven for the Resistance. Only the ocean could hide them now.

  Smallwood got on his mike.

  “Battle stations! Arm Harpoons!” He spat out orders, racing against the speed of his own ship as it cruised toward the enemy. The sub’s Harpoon missiles were their best defense against the Apaches, which were surely armed with missiles and torpedoes of their own. “All ahead one third.”

  The captain turned to the two generals.

  “Perhaps you might want to go below, gentlemen. It might be safer.”

  “Forget it,” Ashdown snarled. “If I’m going down, I want to look the bad guys in the eye first.” He made no move to abandon their post.

  Losenko chose to remain, as well. He took the binoculars from Ashdown. Peering through the lenses, he spotted the helicopters hovering up ahead. He guessed that they had taken off from one of the many smaller islands surrounding Santa Cruz. For all he knew, Skynet had been planning this trap ever since it first learned of the summit. He wondered who was piloting the Apaches. More human collaborators?

  Like Utyosov?

  “Missile control! Ready torpedo tubes!”

  They were nearing the effective range of the Harpoons when, without warning, another missile shot out of the ocean behind the helicopters. The heat of its launch sent a plume of hot steam into the air. Its first-stage rocket ignited and it arced through the sky before exploding into one of the choppers from behind, its excess fuel adding to the conflagration.

  Taken entirely by surprise, the Apache plummeted into the sea trailing smoke and debris. The crash was visible from the bridge of the Wilmington.

  “What the hell?” Ashdown exclaimed. He turned baffled eyes toward Smallwood. “Did we do that?”

  “No, sir!” The captain looked equally perplexed. “We have not opened fire yet.”

  Losenko could only think of one explanation.

  “My submarine!” K-115 was capable of firing Viyuga missiles at enemy aircraft while submerged. “It must be the Gorshkov!”

  Unfortunately, launching the missile had given away the submarine’s location as surely as if it had painted a bull’s-eye on itself. The surviving Apache immediately retaliated. ASW torpedoes dropped from the chopper into the water below. Losenko prayed that Ivanov was taking evasive action, if it was not already too late.

  Dive, Alexei. Dive!

  Ashdown was more concerned about the Apache itself.

  “Now!” he barked at Smallwood. “While it’s got its hands full with that other sub. Bring down that chopper!”

  “Aye, aye, sir!” The captain clutched his mike. “Missile control! Take your best shot!”

  One after the other, a pair of Harpoon missiles shot from the Wilmington’s forward torpedo tubes. They burst from the surface in an explosion of fire and steam, climbing over fifteen meters into the air to collide with the outnumbered chopper, which went tumbling down to join the wreckage of the first Apache. Burning fuel and flotsam spread across the mouth of the harbor. A wind blew the black smoke back toward the submarine.

  “Target destroyed,” Smallwood informed the control room. He wiped the sweat from his brow before addressing Ashdown. “I believe the way is clear, sir.”

  “About time,” Ashdown responded. He turned to Losenko. “What about that sub of yours, Losenko?”

  An underwater explosion, further out to sea, answered his question before Losenko could. Losenko gripped the railing. His heart pounded.

  Alexei!

  “Flooding in compartments four and five!” Chief Komarov reported. Warning lights flashed all around the control room. “Fires spreading through the engine room and galley.”

  Countermeasures had failed. An evasive dive had earned them only a few extra minutes to brace for impact. The enemy torpedo had dealt a death blow to the Gorshkov. Ivanov was amazed that they hadn’t come apart completely. He suspected that the torpedo had hit one of the decoys, but far too close for comfort.

  Firing the missile had been a calculated risk. He still wasn’t entirely sure why he had done it. But the presence of the attack helicopters—poised to attack the escaping American submarine—clearly indicated that a third party was out to destroy the so-called Resistance. Skynet? Terrorists? An aspiring superpower hoping to stake its claim by taking out the opposition?

  Ivanov had no idea who the aggressors were, yet he knew which side Losenko was supposed to be allied with. If the helicopters were attacking the summit and its guests, then they had posed a threat to Losenko.

  But not anymore.

  I just hope I did the right thing.

  Now he had to deal with the consequences.

  “The reactor?”

  “Shielding intact, but there’s evidence of a primary-to-secondary link in the boiler tubes.” Komarov didn’t need to explain what that meant. Radioactive steam would eventually contaminate the hull of the ship. Fixable under ordinary circumstances, but not when the ship was taking on water and filling with smoke.

  Ivanov knew what he had to do.

  “Scram the reactor.” He turned to Lieutenant Trotsky, who was currently serving as officer of the deck. “Blow all groups.”

  They couldn’t stay submerged while dealing with floods, fire, and radiation. An emergency blow was their only hope. Ivanov grabbed onto the rail around the periscope and switched on the speaker system so that the whole sub could hear him.

  “Surface! Surface! Surface!”

  The diving alarm sounded three times to signal an emergency ascent. Over at the ship’s main control station, the chief of the watch yanked on two solid metal levers. High-pressure air rushed into the ballast tanks, driving massive amounts of water out through vents in the submarine’s keel. A deafening racket invaded the control room, even as the floor tilted beneath Ivanov’s sneakers like a funhouse ride. The entire ship slanted precipitously, so that the forward compartments suddenly looked as though they were at the top of a dangerously steep slide.

  Ivanov’s stomach lurched. Acid reflux sloshed up and down his digestive tract.

  The other crewmen grabbed onto anything that might keep them from tumbling aft. Loose mugs and clipboards rolled across the deck. The helmsmen fought to keep the boat on an even keel. The diving officer called out the depth, shouting out the changes as rapidly as an auctioneer.

  “300 feet! 200 feet! 100 feet!”

  What was waiting for them on the surface? Another helicopter? A hostile American attack sub? Ivanov had little time to worry about such things. They would find out soon enough.

  “Broach!”

  Losenko stared out at the ocean in despair. The underwater detonation, which had thrown a geyser of white water into the air, filled his heart with dread. He feared that the Gorshkov had become yet another casualty in the war against the machines. He sagged against the side of the bridge.

  Did my desire to join the Resistance cost me my crew? Have I gained new allies, only to lose everyone who depended upon me?

  Then the water erupted once more, and K-115 flew out nose first. The 7,000-ton submarine rose so far out of the ocean that only its twin screws remained beneath the waves. It hung in the air for a seemingly endless moment before it crashed back down into the water, producing a tidal wave of churning white foam that washed away much of the debris from the fallen ‘copters. Its massive bulk smacked loudly against the surface of the sea.

  “Hah!” Losenko laughed out loud, overcome by relief. He knew an emergency blow when he saw one. The Gorshkov was in trouble, but it wasn’t dead yet. The men aboard still had a chance. “You see that!” he boasted to the other men. “That’s my boat! K-115!”

  “Good work. Damned if I ever thought I’d owe my life to a Russian SSBN!” Ashdown slapped Losenko on the back. “Captain Smallwood, render whatever assistance that ship needs. That’s a priority.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  After falling back into the ocean, the Gorshkov momentarily disappeared underwater, before bobbing up to the surface again. Hatches opened atop its deck as the cre
w poured out, many of them diving into the balmy equatorial waters. Despite his earlier relief, Losenko was distressed to see smoke billowing from the sub’s vents and hatches, and that K-115 was also listing seriously to starboard. Gaping wounds had opened in her hull. Water gushed into the gaps. He doubted that the sub could stay afloat much longer— hence the hasty evacuation.

  The Gorshkov had survived Judgment Day and months at sea in a world at war, but the boat had finally come to the end of its fateful voyage. He watched through binoculars as Chief Komarov helped Ivanov escape the boat. The XO was the last to leave the doomed vessel

  Thank you, Alexei. I could not ask more of you.

  The Wilmington sailed out of the harbor, ploughing through what was left of the wreckage of the downed choppers. Smallwood’s men immediately went to work rescuing the Russian sailors from the ocean. Losenko remembered doing the same for Ortega not too long ago. Tragically, those efforts had only bought her a few more weeks of life.

  What was her first name again? Luz?

  Sinking fast, K-115 submerged for the last time. Losenko realized sadly that his only photo of Katerina was still in his stateroom aboard the sub. More than one chapter in his life was closing forever. His throat tightened. He silently bid the Gorshkov farewell.

  Dasvidania, and godspeed.

  While Losenko watched his past vanish into the depths of the Pacific, Ashdown turned to consider the island they had just escaped, and the Russian followed his gaze. Santa Cruz faded into the distance, but the smoke and flames rising from Puerto Ayora could still be viewed from miles away. The fall of night only made the orange glow easier to make out.

  “Okay,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “We’ve learned a lesson. The land is too dangerous now, particularly for the leadership.” He turned to address Losenko. “This sub is our headquarters now. Command needs to stay out of sight, beneath the ocean, if we’re going to stay alive long enough to bring Skynet down.”